A Labyrnith Requiem
by Wanderlustlover
Summary: Sarah's all grown up and the dreams of childhood are dead. Aren't they?


Title: A Labyrinth Requiem 

Author: Manda

Rating: M for Mature

Fandom: Labyrinth

AN: My love to Earl. I'd been looking to get into this fandom months on months ago, maybe even a year, but never did. I read scads of fan fic for it, but never ended up writing. I let the idea and the multiple different quotes play around in my head about a day before writing. This was what came to me last night...it's a little different, but I hope you like it.

"It's not fair," Sarah replied, but her voice wasn't that of a temper tantrum rung child any longer. It was deeper, colder. That of an older woman who filled her voice with emotions like scorn, hurt, and betrayal.

"No, it's not," the man at the door replied drearily, the vague light through the panes of glass catching in his amber colored hair but not his brown eyes. No, those were dark as mud on a dismal day. He put down the small brown leather tote on top of the matching large suitcase and fiddled with his hand. A moment later he held out his hand to her, continuing, "But it is what it is."

She held her hand out, but she didn't look at what he'd placed in it till after he'd closed the door behind him. Her fingers uncurled slowly, watching as the gold was caught by the same sunlight that had so caught and set on fire his hair. It was a simple thick-banded ring made of gold. She didn't move it from where it lay on the palm of her hand, not wanting to admit this was all true, not wanting to see even apart of the inscription that matched the inside of the ring still on her finger mere millimeters away.

She felt determined not to let herself lose control, and when her hand started quivering, she set the ring down on the small lacquered mahogany table near the door. They'd always used it for mail. Not they...no, it would only be her now. A gulf of sand filled her throat and an ocean of salt stung her eyes as she reached out blindly, by habit, and locked both locks on the front door before leaving the room. But where she didn't let loose, just as sudden the sky did and it pounded the house.

Shuffling her feet in fuzzy blue house shoes, Sarah made her way in a daze to the kitchen. It was a nice spacious place made in whites and browns, clean and bright when the lights were one. Which was why they weren't. She got herself a very large wine goblet from a cabinet and a bottle of wine from the convenience wine rack on the counter. Filling the glass to the top, she thought that it looked more black than red in the dark.

Setting the bottle down on the counter, still open, she picked up the glass, took a small sip and walked out of the kitchen again heedless of where she was going. They'd lived here six years now, so she barely felt the need to watch her step as she left the kitchen, skirted the open doors the made one feel invited into the sitting room and living room, and started her descent up the polished wooden stairs.

It'd been a surprise originally. He'd found and signed the paperwork for it before he'd even asked her to marry him, and he'd shown it to her as an early wedding present three weeks after she'd said yes. It was an amazingly huge Victorian house. It was more than she'd ever hoped or wished for with realism mixed into her plans. Brian had called it 'their dream house'. They'd been young and so in love. But they were neither now and the house didn't hold those dreams any more.

Just her.

Padding quietly past closed doors, she went to the tiny bathroom at the end of the right hall first. Switched on the glaring yellow light and looked at herself in the small high medicine-cabinet half-mirror.

Her hair was tied back at the nape of her neck and her face looked like it was full of shadows. No, more like ghosts and phantom images that her all too creative imagination filled her mind with. Her shirt for hat she could see of it in the mirror was a peasants blouse with small sleeves and elastic to make ruffles in black and it read "Marian House Players Presents" but you couldn't see the rest in the mirror.

Opening the medicine cabinet with the hand not holding the wine glass she shuffled things around been looking for. Pulling out a small orange bottle with a white cap she maneuvered it between her hands and the wine glass stem till she had opened it and two pills were on her open palm. Lightening flashed through the window and she shivered in the cold of the house. The bottle said she was only supposed to take one, but she'd been taking two ever since they'd started fighting.

She'd never taken them with alcohol, drug warnings and all, but today was a particularly horrid day. She swallowed them down.

She returned the bottle to the medicine cabinet, flicked off the light, and shook her head fiercely. She wouldn't cry. She wouldn't punch a wall. She hadn't deserved this. No matter what had happened, she truly couldn't have done something so bad as to deserve this. Taking another gulp of the robust red wine she wandered back down the hallway and stopped at the second open door.

She shouldn't...

She really shouldn't...

Not today. Today of all days, she shouldn't.

Putting a hand out, Sarah pushed the door open further. It was a quiet, dark room. Flicking the light switch on added light to everything. A green couch with a reddish-maroon throw tossed across it's back. A brown desk with things scattered all across it. Another padded chair in the same green as the couch, a matching piece of furniture. And then in the opposite corner a metal filing cabinet that her eyes landed and stayed on.

She walked toward it as if in a dream. Sitting on the floor she opened it after setting her glass on the floor next to her, looking for the things she should be. Her wedding pictures. The pictures of when they first met. Their first few years. Pictures full of smiling and laughter and love. She pulled out the first box as she'd only started seriously photographing her life at the end of her teens. Opening it, she flipped through till she found the first right folder of pictures.

The first set was of a group of kids from a play. She'd met Brian that time for the first time. They hadn't become friends put mutual playmates for their school. They'd been in the same friends group for the next few years, losing touch, and then in the second set of their pictures, meeting up again in college. She shuffled through them looking for their first year anniversary as a couple, then the trip to Ireland.

He called her his little dreamer. She'd been deliriously in love with him from the moment they met again. It was a whirlwind romance and they had the perfect wedding. They'd had years of perfect marriage. He worked as a lawyer, while having her stay home and working her few joys as she wished. She made his work lunch everyday from the moment they lived together, and he left her for a woman who gave him sex every noon instead.

Her eyes closed and a deep breath went out at that thought. Groping for the glass till she opened her eyes and found it, she took a very long swallow of alcohol and willed the medication to kick in soon. Hoping that maybe it'd make her heart feel numb, too. Then she flipped through the box more. Holiday pictures sets with their families were at the end of the box.

Well, not exactly it seemed.

Her fingers landed on a gossamer cloth wrapped around something solid. Pulling it out her mouth suddenly formed into a "O". She hadn't thoughtbut of course, she'd saved it. She'd been young and invulnerable then. Loosening the knots, and turning the cloth over three times, it revealed a long sliver of glass. It winked almost blindingly in the bright light above her

She'd kept it because it'd been part of her magical portal to that world of her dreams. It was the only remaining piece of the broken glass from that so long-loved, and even longer missed mirror, that glimmered as if it contained a bright star. She'd thrown a small party late in her senior year when her parents were gone, and like most parties, the rumor had gotten out and the party had become ungodly huge.

Someone had punched her mirror in a fight over a girl in her bedroom.

She'd kicked everyone out over it.

Running her fingers across the piece of glass she frowned slightly. In her mind the mirror had been her connection to that world. She'd gotten other mirrors since then but nothing was ever the same after that one broke. A sharp pain ran through her and picking up her finger she watched the blood drip down her finger. Sharper than she remembered even after all these years.

Her Adventures in the Labyrinth were over...not that they ever started mind you.

She had years of therapy to cover that part of her childhood. Labyrinth and everything about it was just her fantasy escape from her troubles, they'd told her.

Jareth was a cross between her father issues and her budding realization of the sexual world. He symbolized her thoughts on men in general. Ludo was the symbolism of herself. Large and unable to communicate, with only the ability really to throw large objects and grunt her thoughts. Sir Didimus was her mother issues. Her first mother being gone and her step-mother being in charge and telling her life was always amazing and good when it wasn't.

Hoggle was her example of what friendship was. Something to be forever doubted, that could be gained or lost with bargaining chips, but that might eventually win out with loyalty. Her peers and the changes of herself into growing up were shown through the creatures who partied, lost and switched their limbs, talked about having nothing to worry about, as when growing up you had to change and sometimes you tried to deny the true things of yourself for those around you.

Her undertaking to rescue her lost brother was her need to be the center of attention, need to be seen as noble and worthwhile in her parents' eyes. The up and down battle was the proof that she was worth being in the world, and that there was a place to be accepted when she couldn't brave her way through the real world.

It'd taken years but she'd finally accepted it. After all, she couldn't ever prove them wrong. They'd even encouraged her to do something with her creative imagination. She created a series of children's books and it had sky rocketed for several years. It was called _The Adventures in the Labyrinth_. It had a small but dedicated following, but she'd lost her passion for it years ago.

Everyone has to grow up and let go of his or her fantasies sometime.

She'd chosen Brian and her perfect romance.

And now she had neither.

She had nothing.

Curling her hand up, trying to get the blood to stop, she closed her eyes tight, barely registering it when the tears started falling and wouldn't stop. The gossamer cloth filled like a lake and tiny jewels dripped and rippled across the reflective surface below her. She was alone.

"It's not fair," she sobbed into the silence, wanting someone to hear her. Her eyes scorned the glass beneath her when her memory rippled at that statement and threw words back at her from the past.

I "You say that so often, I wonder what your basis for comparison is?" /I 

So alone and nothing made sense. She hadn't done anything wrong. She hadn't been the perfect wife, but she'd always tried her hardest same as him. So why was she alone, when he'd cheated on her, and why even though he'd done the wronging, was he with some woman he now claimed to be in love with?

"You're not real," she sobbed, still focused on Brian, but now mingling it with something old and broken and long hidden away, as she looked at the glass shard in her lap. Her tears kept falling hard, making her feel like her heart was being pounded with the ferocity of her tears the way the rain thundered her home.

"I wish you were real," Sarah cried as she tossed the shard across the room. Thunder shook the house. "But you're not."

She dissolved into tears again, missing the flare of light inside the glass as it arced through the air, only looking up when the glass shard connected with the floor and shattered. And looking at it only made her cry harder. She was lost and alone beyond everything. She cried on and on for what felt like hours and when the tears finally died, she shoved all the pictures away, leaving them a mess on the floor.

Grabbing her wine glass she fled the room. She'd known she shouldn't have come in here. Not this night. She shouldn't be torturing herself with their good memories on the day he'd signed the divorce papers and left her for good. She staggered up the hall to her bedroom, wavered, and caught herself on the doorframe to her bedroom. The medicine was kicking in.

Correction: the medicine had probably kicked in a while ago. She'd been too busy crying to notice much of anything. She set down her glass, pulled off her clothes and left them in a pile by the door before closing it and walking to the dresser. Hunting through night clothes passing up pants and tank top suits and moving into lingerie. She shouldn't, but she was good at shouldn't right now, too. Pulling out the long white nightgown he'd bought her on their third wedding anniversary she held it close to her body.

The silk was soft against her bare skin, giving her goose bumps. Slipping it over her shoulders she shivered against the feeling of it all over her body again. Picking up her glass of wine she moved to their...her bed in the darkness that was only occasionally broken with light from the sky outside. She took a long drink of her wine realizing it was slowing becoming less than even a third full, but it was a very large goblet wine glass after all.

Slipping into her bed, she set it away from her again this time on her bed table. She curled up against the cotton pillow cover and dissolved into tears again. The bed was empty now. Not just for a trip, a few days or a week, but forever. So empty. Like her body now. She tried for sleep but nothing came except intermittent bouts of tears and the continuous sound of the storm.

Sarah stilled at a sound, worried first someone had broken into her house. But there it came again. Softer and closer than downstairs. Pushing herself up she looked around her room. It was empty of movement, but there came the sound again. Soft, almost like a whisper, but also frantic. Moving the duvet off, she picked up her wine glass again, and walked across her room, stopping when the fluttering shadows from outside her double balcony doors finally caught her eyes.

Edging toward the wall, she moved toward the window slowly, trying to find anything in her room she could hit an intruder with. Except the moment she thought that, she felt like laughing. It was preposterous for an intruder to be breaking into her home from her front facing, second floor balcony. She peeked around the curtain and was back by the wild fluttering of a white bird, which darted back from her face just as fast.

Standing entranced in front of the pane of glass she watched the white bird - no, no, it was a white, snowy owl- till it came to perch on her balcony rail. The rain poured all around it, but it didn't seem to be touching the bird, where it stood cocking its head in her direction. Lightning flashed, momentarily blinding her and causing her to stumble back our of surprise, and when her sight cleared, she took another step back from the glass .

"You're..." she whispered to herself, staring at the figure that was now leaning leisurely against her scrolling iron work of balcony railing. A man with wild blond hair and mis-matched eyes, she knew, though she could not see them from here. He wore a cloak of light grey, but it was thrown back behind him and his body was painted in a shirt matching the cloak, black pants snug against every part of his lower body, but his hand was thrown out...

Beckoning to her?

"Not," she continued, but she'd taken a step forward and her hands were on the doorknobs, and throwing the doors wide open. Rain drenched her suddenly in torrents, plastering the white gown against her flesh and her hair across her face. But she couldn't get herself to stop. It was like she was compelled.

"Sarah, Sarah, Sarah..." he whispered, mouth barely moving, an arrogant smirk twisting his beautiful lips.

I 'Everything! Everything that you wanted I have done. You asked that the child be taken. I took him. You cowered before me. I was frightening. I have reordered time. I have turned the world upside down and I have done it all for you! I am exhausted from living up to your expectations of me. Isn't that generous?' /I 

The name found her ears, even though the storm was deafening. It was like a completely different language spoken with that voice, that way. The voiced wrapped around her whole body, touching her in places it shouldn't, promising things it couldn't possibly. Shocking her so that she dropped the wine glass and it broke apart next to where she stood, staining her gown and splashing across the tiles.

I 'Stop! Wait! Look, Sarah. Look what I'm offering you Your Dreams.' /I 

Her next step sliced into her foot with a piece of glass, and she swore, her eyes finally breaking from his. Blood mingled with water and wine as she bent down to see her foot. It was a messy red river, merged with pelting rain. The chunk of glass was large enough to feel and she thought she had all if not most of it out with the first tug. But that realization led her to other, more terrible things thoughts.

I 'I ask for so little. Just let me rule you and you can have everything that you want.' /I 

She was standing on her balcony in the rain. She was hallucinating. She was wearing a white gown that was now utterly see-through.

I 'Just fear me, love me, do as I say, and I will be your slave.' /I 

And worst of all, she trembled before the idea of looking up to meet those eyes again. And yet she did just what she feared, feeling like a child all over again, looking up into that face. Arching brows, wicked lips, and that hand still held out to hers, fingers moving just barely, in invitation.

"You..." Sarah started, and another sentence from long ago filled her mouth and her mind, but that was not the one on her lips at that moment. It was not the feeling that flooded her chest or thundered through her the same as the rumbling sky. Reaching out, her fingers grazed his; somehow warm even in this frigid rain. Her fingers slid into his, and she felt his grip tighten around her and all the pain inside her vanished.

"...aren't..." her voice seemed to follow her sluggishly in her mind. So slow and everything else around her was moving so fast. The world shimmered around them and warmth slowly flooded her body. No, not warmth. Magic. There was a feeling that came with magic that those who'd never been touched by it would never understand. It went through a person's body to the tip of every single hair.

"...real." The nightgown had transformed itself into a gown she'd drawn a million times in art classes and sketched in the margins of notebooks. Somehow, she was entirely dry. And he was still staring into her eyes, into her soul with that piercing gaze, so filled with want and need. And at her third word, his grip on one part of her waist had tightened. When had he gotten so close to her? When had this become a dance?

And yet everything whirled around them and just when she had time to question it's happening, he spun her and pulled her close again. He was a warmth flooding through her. A delirium she had little want to release. And yet she struggled against him, to look back behind her. It was fading from her vision almost completely but she could see it for a moment.

A balcony under siege by thunder and rain with a river of red over a large section of it. But wasn't it too large a splash of red for the wine she'd spilled or the cut that had been on the bottom of her foot.

"Sarah..." the voice came again, and she looked over her shoulder. Her breath caught in her chest, drying out her lungs, as his face was merely inches from hers. His eyes pierced her through again. She could feel his breath against her skin, the weight of words unsaid. "Sarah, stay with me."

Thoughts flooded through her. Doctors. Delirium. Alcohol. Medication. Brian. And the first shard of pain stabbed it's way into her precious moment, but she was looking up at that same moment thinking about the thing she'd always said to him and almost always only to him, and that she'd said childishly to Brian today.

"Yes," she said at last, the word flying from her lips. There was a surprise that registered in his eyes, completely unaware and then arrogant, but neither had time to stay because she turned her cheek till her lips found his, for the first time doing what she'd always dreamed of.

A soft gasp escaped his lips before his arms pressed harder, molding her body to his, deepening the kiss. Light struck from the sky not far from where they were, but neither noticed as that world shimmered and then completely faded away.


End file.
